At this year’s Mobile World Congress, new hardware was stuck in beta, but glasses-free 3D screens impressed.

The metaverse confronted its identity crisis in a deflated hype cycle: blockchain and NFTs withdrew to the shadows, leaving the focus on enterprise and industrial applications.

AI: while aware of the (numerous) issues, discussions occasionally skated over issues of effectiveness, data inputs, the role of humans, and conditions for adoption.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year was held virtually, with announcements revolving almost exclusively around the pandemic and addressing changing consumer needs. The evolving use of tech at home was a particular focus for brands as consumers are now demanding more of their homes than ever before.

Following a record 2020, ecommerce was a topic that garnered a lot of attention, with retailers emphasising the importance of a consumer centric 'digital first' strategy, accepting the fact that ecommerce is going to be bigger than it ever has been.

Amid increased tech use at home, moves to ban third-party cookies and impending regulatory changes to data collection in the US, the conversation around data and privacy was more prominent than ever before. First-party data is going to be more valuable, even if tracking restrictions limit what can be done with that data.

Ofcom’s recommendations to Government suggest updating EPG prominence legislation to cover connected TVs, and were warmly welcomed by the PSBs

Balancing various commercial, PSB and consumer interests will be key; determining what content qualifies for prominence will be a particularly thorny issue to resolve

Extending prominence to smart TVs and streaming sticks is critical, but implementation will be challenging

Yet another annual hype cycle in 2018 can’t hide a tepid consumer appetite for all VR platforms and heavy weather for the industry as a whole

The launch of Oculus GO, a standalone device at an attractive price, is a milestone for VR; nevertheless, even Facebook remains worried about reach and the state of the industry

Mobile AR is still a strategic focus for Google and Apple, producing diverse applications instead of just games, but new headsets from Microsoft and Magic Leap which promise advanced MR experiences have no launch dates

Voice, and the smart virtual assistants that power voice interfaces, will be a key transformative force over the next five years

Any business providing content or services via digital means is potentially affected, as these virtual assistants promise a single front end for all digital services, representing an extraordinary concentration of control over discovery, delivery and data

Media businesses will clearly be affected. But there is an opportunity for them right now to influence the assistant providers to their advantage, a window that will not stay open forever

The temporary cool-off in hype around VR following a very buzzy 2016 is not reducing the flow of investment and talent into the industry, notably in video production utilising 360Video technology; setting the stage for the development of a truly new entertainment medium

Fully immersive interactive worlds will continue to be the mainstay of the video games industry, while video entertainment will exist in a multi-track environment, with some genres (news, documentaries , natural history) making 360Video mainstream well before long-form narrative-driven entertainment

2017 will still be a challenging year for consumer device VR roll-out and mass market adoption; Oculus, Google, and Sony continue to seed the market, providing large scale funding and equipment directly to developers and content producers

Enders Analysis co-hosted its annual conference, in conjunction with BNP Paribas and Deloitte, in London on 17 March 2015. The event featured talks from 13 of the most influential figures in media and telecoms, and was chaired by Sir Peter Bazalgette. This report provides the accompanying slides for some of the presentations.

Videos of the presentations are available on the conference website.

Enders Analysis co-hosted its annual conference, in conjunction with BNP Paribas and Deloitte, in London on 17 March 2015. The event featured talks from 13 of the most influential figures in media and telecoms, and was chaired by Sir Peter Bazalgette. This report provides edited transcripts from some of the talks, and you will find accompanying slides for many of the presentations here.

Videos of the presentations are available on the conference website.

The decline in UK residential broadband market growth has paused due to accelerating adoption by older householders and increased household formation. We expect 970,000 net additions in 2010 and 20.5 million broadband households by 2015. However we expect growth will continue to decline from 2011 as the impact of the government spending review feeds into consumer confidence and the market becomes increasingly saturated

As BT’s next generation access network is deployed, there is likely to be accelerated improvement in DSL price/performance, with DSL customers migrating to a 40 Mbit/s headline speed as it becomes available. The impact of this is likely to be compounded by Virgin Media up-rating its broadband portfolio from speeds of 10, 20 and 50 Mbit/s to 20, 50 and 100 Mbit/s

In the absence of further consolidation, in market share terms the industry appears set to remain divided into three strategic segments: the ‘big three’, brand extenders, and Sky. We expect residential broadband market revenue (excluding content) to continue to decline gradually, stabilising by 2015 as the impact of market share gain by lower priced ISPs attenuates due to a combination of a maturing market and reduced price differentials caused by NGA